This invention relates to telecommunications switching and, in particular, to wireless switching systems.
A problem in the installing, provisioning, and deploying of in-building or campus personal communications systems (PCS) is the small physical size of the cells provided by the base stations. This is a problem because as an individual walks through a building with their wireless handset, the wireless handset is continuously re-registering on different base stations as it loses contacts with the previous base station. Such movements cause a large amount of traffic for the base stations as well as for the central controller that is providing overall control and switching for the wireless system. Since the central controller must be informed on which base station each wireless handset is registered, there is an advantage in the central controller knowing the exact base station on which a wireless handset is registered. When an incoming call is received for the handset, the wireless system controller can immediately set up the call via the base station to the wireless handset. If the wireless system controller simply knows that the wireless handset is registered on one of the base stations in the wireless system, then, the wireless system controller must attempt to set up the incoming call via all the base stations.
Within the prior art these problems have been resolved by the utilization of logical coverage areas. Base stations are grouped into logical coverage areas, and the wireless system controller is only informed that a wireless handset is registered on a base station within a particular logical coverage area. When an incoming call is received for the wireless handset, the wireless system controller only attempts to establish a connection to the wireless handset through the base stations that make up the logical coverage area of the wireless handset. Within a logical coverage area, if a wireless handset moves from one base station to another, the wireless handset does not re-register on the other base station since it is in the same logical coverage area. This greatly reduces the number of re-registrations and assists in the amount of work that must be done to route incoming calls to a wireless handset.
Logical coverage areas are used in many wireless protocols such as PHS, DECT, or PWT. However, problems do exist with the utilization of logical coverage areas. First, the use of logical coverage areas complicates the provisioning and deploying of new PCS wireless networks since a great deal of time and effort must be spent in determining which base stations should be placed in which logical coverage areas.
The foregoing problems are solved, and a technical advance is achieved, by an apparatus and method that automatically determines logical coverage areas upon initialization of a wireless switching system. This eliminates the manual provisioning during deployment of the wireless switching system since the initial determination of the logical coverage areas is automatically performed. In a first embodiment, the determination of logical coverage areas is performed by individual base stations. In a second embodiment, the determination of logical coverage areas is performed by a system wireless controller controlling the wireless switching system.
Other and further aspects of the present invention will become apparent during the course of the following description and by reference to the accompanying drawing.